


Name in the Bridge

by Oron_Joogor



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Anxiety, Depression, Everyone Is Alive, F/M, I Don't Even Know, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-07 13:07:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19210048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oron_Joogor/pseuds/Oron_Joogor
Summary: I'm really not sure what I'm writing here, I just wanted to write something that maybe someone would like. Have fun. This is one of those cheesy soulmate AU's where everything is black and white until they meet their soulmate.





	1. Chapter 1

 

     The rustling of the water, the drag of the wind across his skin, there had never been anything more peaceful than this. He sat on the wooden bridge, running his fingers over the old wood. This bridge had been here since before he could remember. There wasn’t much to it other than it felt like a serene, safe spot to keep track of the passing summer days. The passing summer days that would soon fade to fall again, and come back to school. Steven Rogers hated high school, absolutely despised it for the longest time. But he did understand that he needed to learn to get close to getting into college.

 

     Steven had a particular love for mathematics, and as boring as it sounded, he wanted to work as an engineer. He felt like giving back to the community as it was, that felt like the most important thing to him at the moment. He didn’t know if it would change, he didn’t know if he would want something different in the future. Although school might have been great, everything would have been better if things had been in color.

 

     Many people before had talked about how amazing everything had been after their world flooded with color, after things seemed to get better. How life was a world lit up. The only person who had never talked about this was his mother, Sarah. Well, she had talked about it before.

 

     And this was the general reason why Steven was terrified of meeting his soulmate. That day couldn’t have been more horrifying for him.

 

* * *

 

 

     Steven played with a set of toy trains, with an episode of Rugrats playing late at night. He didn’t quite pay attention to it, enthralled with his trains. The doors were open in late August, airing out the small space. And suddenly, a scream ripped through the room, as did the sobs of Sarah Rogers. Her world went gray while she had been doing laundry, and that’s all that Steven knew. He had never bothered to ask her about this, it had happened in 2000 anyways. It was something that he felt like wasn’t supposed to bring into the conversation. This was when he was five years old, after all.

 

     And before he could have ever asked about it, Sarah passed in her sleep in the summer of 2006. Her autopsy had told Steven, as an eleven year old, that his mother had died from a condition called acute stress-induced cardiomyopathy. He was left to dissect that in his own brain, and go through the stress of that. His world was still gray, but he could not fathom having the vivid colors of the world being pulled away from him in one very second.

 

* * *

 

 

     Even now, at seventeen, he still missed his mother dearly. She had been gone for years. Things had been okay since then, Steven had a job at an animal adoption site down the road from his apartment. It took a while to get used to being out of foster care and into his own one bedroom apartment, but it felt a little easier.

 

     Steven hoped that the world would change. He had been staring at the same bridge for years, sitting in the same spot. The rungs that held his broad legs had been moved when he put his legs through them so many times. There were many scratches in the wooden posts, some that he knew. Some that he experienced, like from the day that Pepper and Tony followed him to the bridge and carved their names into the rungs of the bridge. Another day, when Natasha burnt a hole into a part of the bridge with a lighter and a stick.

 

     There was one scratch in the bridge that Natasha and Steven always looked at, and they made fun of. The markings read “J.B.B. 2009”. Every time Steven came to the bridge alone, he always ran his fingers over this marking, wondering who this person was.

 

     It was kind of a strange wonder, and although the carving was made three years ago, he still wondered about it.

 

* * *

 

 

     A year of going to the same old bridge, hanging out with Natasha and Clint, Tony and Pepper, everything felt like it was getting old. His friends all had their soulmates, could all see the colors that he couldn’t see. They were all seniors, and about to graduate. Seriously, in their graduation robes now.

 

     Pepper laughed a little bit as they sat in the rows, being pressured to stay quiet by their row leaders that would call their names. It was fun, everything seemed like it would be okay. Steven sat quietly at Tony’s side, watching as their favorite teacher asked their row to stand. He stood, in unison with all of his friends, and looked back at a small commotion behind him. A taller girl who was always in the back of his English class, looked at him and smiled. “I’m not ready for this, obviously.” Her voice was sweet, and she straightened herself out after almost falling when standing up.

 

     “It’s okay, the only people in this row who have their shit together are Tony and Pepper,” Steven replied as their row started moving. They all quietly lined up at the stage, watching their fellow classmates be called. Their teacher walked up onto the stage, smiling proudly.

 

     “It is my honor to announce the following six valedictorians of the class of 2013,” he paused for a few seconds. “Clinton Francis Barton… Natasha Alianovna Romanoff… Virginia Pepper Potts… Anthony Edward Stark…” By now, many people had been clapping. Tony had helped the entire group to emerge as valedictorians, but it was surprising that any of them kept up with it. “Steven Grant Rogers… Rebecca Rikki Barnes. Congratulations, my favorite students. I wish you luck and farewell.”

 

     There were many people clapping as Steven’s row exited the stage, and were seated back down. The ceremony was quite long, and they were in the front row.

 

     The ceremony was a lot quicker than Steven had thought it would be, and soon they were all outside. He was visiting with Tony’s parents, happy to take a picture with his best friend. The friend group were all having fun, and they planned on going to dinner and a party together. Steven couldn’t believe they were graduated still. He took a few quick pictures, and went off to chat with Natasha, Clint, and Pepper, who were enjoying cold drinks provided by the school. They were laughing, and when Steven walked up, Natasha greeted him quietly and let him slip into the group.

 

     “So yeah, Tony has been working on this weird thing. It’s in line with Howard’s prosthetic line, but it’s a lot more complicated and it works better than most of Howard’s prosthetics. I just can’t believe he got accepted to California Tech,” Pepper spoke in a proud but hushed tone, taking sips of her bottled water. It was humid in Pasadena, and the graduates were all hot under their robes. All the sudden, as Steven looked around at his fellow graduates, his world burst into color. It was first, all of the red robes of the general graduates, and then he turned around to see the white robes of his group. Steven’s eyes widened, and the first person to notice this was Pepper. She stopped talking.

 

     “Steve? Are you okay?” She said, stepping forward and putting a hand on his shoulder. Steven nodded.

 

     “Colors. I… everything is in color.”

 

     Steven hadn’t even seen the source of this change.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I think I'm going to go on with this, I like the start of what I have right now so it's going pretty well at least. Have an amazing day.  
> Also I'm really sorry that this chapter is longer than the last one, I was furiously trying to fit in a lot of the background details that I wanted in there.

     He had lived in Alaska with his aunt for as long as he could remember. Honestly, he liked the cold and the lack of people in the small towns. It was something that he preferred, because his family was a social line and he could barely deal with that. The anxiety of family gatherings got under his skin a lot of the time.

 

     But one day in 2009, his aunt received a call from his mother, telling her that there was a family reunion in Pasadena, California. He had been dreading this since the day he got his plane tickets. He wanted to enjoy the snow and the cold weather for longer, but the day that he went to Pasadena was coming closer and closer.

 

 

     The day came quickly, and it was suddenly that he was in Pasadena with two suitcases. He waved a cab down, and he was surprised when he immediately got one. He noted that the city was entirely too busy for his own liking, but it would have to do for the time being. He stuffed his items in the trunk of the cab, and clambered into the car. “Hello, uhm, could you take me to this address?” The boy took out a yellow sticky note, and showed the cab driver. The man nodded, and merged into traffic as the teen clicked his seatbelt into place.

 

     The cab driver made small talk, and noted that the ride would be a little bit long because it was rush hour and the house was on the other side of Pasadena. The teenager was okay with that, even though it felt a little weird to be in a cab alone with someone he had never met. In his small hometown in Alaska, everyone knew everyone and nobody was unfamiliar with each other. He felt the chill of anxiety shake through his body.

 

     The streets went by quicker than expected, which made the teen happy. But as soon as the cab drove onto the freeway, the teen got a deeper uneasy feeling in his stomach.

 

 

     The next thing that he knew, he was waking up to someone shining a flashlight in his eyes, and a searing pain that he couldn’t escape. The teen opened his eyes, and noticed that everything was upside down. There was the asphalt… the window of the cab was broken. His vision was red tinted and fuzzy. “James?.. James, can you hear me?”

 

     James made a rumbling sound in his forehead, and nodded a little bit. There was chatter from a radio, when everything clicked. James remembered falling asleep in the bumper to bumper traffic of Pasadena, and now he was waking up. “I can hear you..” James rasped out.

 

     “We’re going to get you out, don’t worry. You’ll be in the hospital soon.” This kind woman who spoke to him disappeared, and James took a second to calm himself down. He was smashed against the seat, and he couldn’t feel his arm. He felt his neck move and knew it probably wasn’t broken, that he was mostly okay. But something wasn’t right.

 

 

     When James woke up to the pungent smell of disinfectant two weeks later, his body immediately tensed up. Everything felt wrong, and he couldn’t quite tell what it was. The left side of James’ body was entirely numb. Most of his body was numb, so he didn’t pay attention to it mostly. James tried to stand up, but only got to putting his feet on the floor before he was stunned. As he tried to push himself up with both arms, he had pushed a world of pain through the left side of his body. When he looked at his arm, he didn’t find anything there.

 

     That’s when a scream that shook everyone to the core rang through the entire hospital.

 

     Three nurses rushed into the hospital room, and were abruptly trying to sedate thirteen year old James, who kept screaming as he stared at his arm. When one of the nurses pushed a mask to James’ face, he inhaled in one deep breath, and was caught by the nurses and placed back onto the bed.

 

 

     Months later, James sat on an old and worn down bridge. He had healed spectacularly from his accident, but his left arm had been crushed beyond anything the surgeon had ever seen, and had been amputated shortly below his shoulder. This pushed James into a depression, and he had ended up staying in Pasadena with the company of his sister and his mother. He didn’t mind it too much, but the heat was just about the worst thing that he had ever experienced.

 

     James pressed a pocket knife into the bridge’s wood, and started carving very slowly, his initials. “J.B.B. 2009”. He got a call just as he was done, and he flipped open his phone, pressing the green answer key.

 

     “Hey Becca, what’s up?” He said, listening to his sister.

 

     “You should come home, dinner is almost ready.”

 

     “Mkay, thanks Bec.” James clambered up out of his spot on the bridge, and helped himself up. He studied the carving that he made, and slipped his flip phone back into his pocket as he was walking away.

* * *

 

 

     It took a long time for him to adjust to being in Pasadena. It was unbearably hot almost, and he was sure that he was going to die. Although, his family was massively endowed with money and he could lounge in his room with the air conditioning all he wanted.

 

     James Barnes, better known as Bucky, was a broad shouldered teen who worked out as much as he could during his spare time. At seventeen years old, he was the most physically fit in his health nut family. He took a while to become this person, but he finally was convinced that it was the best he could be. This look got Bucky many women, but he had never been asked if that’s what he wanted.

 

     Bucky was stuck in almost a wonderland, though. He had a private tutor because he struggled with anxiety that pressed at his skin like it was trying to rip him apart. Half of the time, that’s what it felt like. But his mother didn’t mind, he had used some half-ass excuse about not liking the people in Pasadena High School enough to really go there. She had accepted this, and hired a nice young woman who tutored Bucky and taught him what he needed to learn.

 

     His sister though, was a different case. She had always stated that she needed to be out in the open instead of stuck in a stuffy house. Becca was one of the smartest people that Bucky knew, and he really didn’t know many people. She had brought many people over, and it was something that Bucky quite liked. He knew that he would like it more if the world was illuminated in colors, but Bucky had always felt like that would never happen.

 

     Even during Becca’s many parties that everyone loved, even through the mix of bodies and the dancing, Bucky had never felt as if there was someone that would love him. But he had mostly come to terms with it, and it honestly barely bothered him anymore. He had come to terms with being alone through the privacy of his house. His mother, Winifred Barnes, was mostly deep in the city, running a corporation that was assumed to be passed down to Becca, since Bucky was not the most social animal.

 

     Becca was going to have another party tonight, but they knew that this one would be much bigger. She was going to graduate later today, and Bucky was, for once, excited to be in the eye of the public as he watched his sister graduate. It felt like everything was coming together in his life. He was to graduate soon also, through a different program that would only give him a diploma. It was a sobering moment of reality to realize that he was seventeen and almost out of school.

 

     When the time came, Bucky sat in the crowd of many people, and he watched as his sister’s row got called. After they called Tony Stark, Howard Stark’s son and one of Becca’s best friends, Bucky looked down to readjust his camera. Another name got called, and then he quickly raised his camera, and took pictures of Becca as she received her diploma. When this happened, Bucky quickly looked up from his phone, and his world exploded entirely in color. He was horrified.

 

     Bucky raked his eyes across the stage, that was the only place that he was looking, where could this person be? His soulmate. Bucky almost passed out after thinking about it for a second, and he held his head in his hands. Winifred sat next to him, and quickly glanced at her son before continuing her chant of cheers and claps for her daughter and her daughter’s friends. Bucky excused himself to catch a bathroom in the lobby. Panting, heart racing, Bucky sat in the bathroom until the entire ceremony was over. He felt like his security blanket was falling off of his shoulders and he desperately wanted it back.


End file.
